The 8400's wide-angle lens promises to broaden our views of 8-megapixel cameras.Digital photography has been liberated from the narrow angle of view. Though the Nikon Coolpix 8400's 24mm-to-85mm lens (35mm equivalent) hardly qualifies as super-wide-angle, it's the widest you'll find in a digital camera without interchangeable lenses. Throw in an 8-megapixel CCD, and you have a camera that's bound to appeal, especially to landscape and architecture photographers.
Upside: The extra field of view you gain by moving from 28mm to 24mm (35mm equivalent) can make a huge difference in some shooting situations, such as photographing interiors or framing interesting landscapes. And Nikon learned its design dos and don'ts from feedback on the D70 and the Coolpix 8700: the company implemented many of the design features of the D70, such as the commonsense mode dial and the magnesium-alloy body, and it did away with the poorly placed controls on the 8700's lens barrel and narrow-angle lens.
Downside: The camera's maximum aperture of f/2.6 is a bit disappointing since competitors such as the Olympus C-8080WZ and the Sony Cyber Shot DSC-F828 deliver f/2.4 or better, nor have we heard about any performance improvements over the 8700, which was substellar.
Outlook: With the Coolpix 8400 expected to be available in October with an estimated street price of AU$1500, we can't wait to see if this second-generation 8-megapixel camera and its brother, the Coolpix 8800, improve on our not-so-thrilling experiences with the first-generation cameras.
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